


Run away with me

by saltylikecrait



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Canon, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Developing Relationship, F/M, Smuggler AU, Space Traders, Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-25
Updated: 2018-05-25
Packaged: 2019-05-13 12:50:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,407
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14749187
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/saltylikecrait/pseuds/saltylikecrait
Summary: Rey knows if she lets him walk out of her life now, the odds are that she will never see Finn again. The galaxy is just too large to randomly come across an old acquaintance by accident.





	Run away with me

**Author's Note:**

> Posting a little early again. For the Finnrey Friday theme: runaways - scenario: what if Rey left Takodana with Finn?

“Rey, come with me.”

His eyes are gentle, _pleading._ Now she understands why he was desperate to stay away from the First Order; now so much has been explained. A stormtrooper on the run, denouncing the organization that raised him. Before she met Finn, she might have been disappointed to find out that someone had witnessed the horrors of the First Order first-hand and refuse to take up the cause of the Resistance - to be a hero - but now that Finn has been in her life, she only finds herself disappointed because he might not be in it much longer. The thought of Finn leaving just after he entered her life pains her heart. There is so much she can say to him to try to convince him to stay with her.

But she only shakes her head. “Don’t go.”

The remaining hopefulness fades from his gaze, but he does not argue with her. “Take care of yourself. Please.”

Then he turns away to approach the crew of aliens that would let him leave Takodana with them. Rey knows if she lets him walk out of her life now, the odds are that she will never see Finn again. The galaxy is just too large to randomly come across an old acquaintance by accident.

She purses her lips and goes back to Han, Maz, and BB-8. They are still arguing about how to get the droid back to the Resistance. As much as she hates what she is about to ask them, Rey realizes she has a choice to make and each choice that she can see at the moment will probably lead her down a path different from the others. She knows she must choose wisely, but a part of herself has already decided.

“You’ll make sure Beebee-ate gets back, right?” she asks them, motioning to the orange and white astromech, the first friend she’s made in years.

Han sighs and resorts to accepting that he will have to meet with his wife soon and might end up being involved with yet another rebel organization. “Yeah, I will.”

Rolling from out from under the table, BB-8 hoots a question at her.

“Take care of yourself, Beebee-ate,” she tells them. “I can’t go with you.”

The BB unit tries to convince her otherwise, but when they find she will not change her mind, their head tilts downward, sadly.

“I hope we meet again someday,” she tells them, and it’s with gentle honesty. Rey has found herself very attached to the droid.

She finds the captain with the red helmet and his crew before she spots Finn. At first, she nearly panics, thinking she missed him or located the wrong crew, but then she calms down when she spots him approaching the cargo ship’s ramp, looking a little forlorn as he gets ready to leave.

“Finn! Wait up!”

* * *

In the Outer Rim, they get news in bits and pieces.

Almost immediately after they leave Takodana, they learn about the destruction of the Hosnian System. When Rey looks over at Finn, sitting down in his seat and listening to the news, she knows that he knows something more about it than he wants to let on.

His hands are clenched, but he says nothing, not wanting to tip the crew off to his past. The fewer the people that know about his stormtrooper roots, the better. 

Rey knows that there’s nothing she can do to ease his fears, so she reaches out and gently covers her hand over one fist he is making, hoping that the gesture will bring him at least a little comfort. The truth is that she is also scared because now nowhere in the galaxy will ever be considered safe or out of the First Order’s aim.

* * *

Their first stop is a rocky, harsh world full of sinkholes called Utapau. They dock in a city that has been built into the walls of one of these massive sinkholes and admire the colorful, loyal reptavian mounts that the world is known for.

Finn and Rey stick around only for a short time and take on odd jobs for docked transports for credits. They are low on funds and they quickly realize that they need to find a way to support themselves; they can sleep on freighters for the people they work for and eat the cheapest local food they can find for only so long, after all.

News travels slowly to Utapau, and about two days after they arrive, they finally hear about the attack on Takodana that occurred just shortly after they left and the destruction of a world called D’Qar. The locals find it odd for the First Order to target such a quiet world, but some gossip about how the world was a known Resistance base. It would make sense then that the First Order would target such an insignificant planet.

Rey looks worried and Finn pulls her into a hug. She wonders about BB-8 and if the Resistance was able to get to them before the First Order found them.

Finn cannot find the words to reassure her so he just holds her tighter.

* * *

Finn decidedly hates Tatooine the moment he steps off the freighter that they found employment with. It’s too much like Jakku. Too much sand, too much heat, not enough bodies of water.

“I wanna leave as soon as we can,” he says in a huff, crossing his arms as he looks around the barren landscape.

“We’ve got to drop off this stuff and pick up another delivery first,” Rey points out.

He groans with displeasure.

“Hey,” says Rey, “at least there’s civilization here.”

That evening, they eat and drink with the locals, asking for stories and hearing a lot of interesting things. They had no idea that this was once the home of Luke Skywalker.

“Has he been found?” Rey asks with curiosity, knowing that if he has and he’s not dead now, at least BB-8 is probably safe too. She and Finn have discussed this late into their nights alone together. If the First Order found Skywalker before the Resistance, they would probably kill him and announce it to the whole galaxy. Killing the figure that is thought of as the galaxy’s savior would cause many to lose hope, which is exactly what the First Order wants. Hope is a dangerous thing to organizations that want total control over their populations.

No one seems to know. There are rumors, of course, but nothing confirmed.

From what Finn can gather, the First Order is no longer looking for him. He guesses that their declared victory over the New Republic has contributed to that. One defected stormtrooper isn’t that high of a priority, he only just left the rank of cadet before that fateful night on Jakku, after all. He’s probably been reported as dead in their records, to keep suspicions at bay. This means he can pretty much travel anywhere he wants to now, without too much worry they’ll be lurking around the corner. As long as he keeps a low profile and doesn’t get involved with too much trouble, he’s safe.

Rey also finds that the bounty on her has been recalled. They had discovered on accident that Unkar Plutt had placed a reward for her return to Jakku. This puzzled Rey, but she figured it probably had more to do with the _Millennium Falcon_ than her.

“Scavengers fled Jakku all the time,” she tells him. “He never went looking for them. I highly doubt it has anything to do with me being good at finding scrap parts.”

Finn knits his eyebrows together. “And it’s not because you were… a slave or something, right?”

He says this part quietly because they know that slavery is a touchy subject on Tatooine. Years after the Hutt’s reign ended here, Tatooine finally made slave owning illegal. However, Rey thinks if that was her case, she might have been able to seek asylum on the dusty world for a while. Surely the locals would be sympathetic to that. She keeps this information tucked away, in case she ever encounters some poor soul trying to escape to freedom.

That night, they curl up together in a bed that’s almost too small to fit the two of them in a room they had rented above the cantina. Rey wonders if she could have done more to help the Resistance if she had gone to them with BB-8 and the thought that she could have ruined their odds to find Luke Skywalker makes her upset. They lace their fingers together, a comfort in the bleakness of darkness that never seems to end even when the sun rises in the morning.

It’s that night that Finn sums up the courage to kiss her for the first time.

* * *

Rey finds she likes Dantooine enough and maybe when she and Finn can afford it, they can find a home here to stay in between jobs. It’s mainly grassy plains, but the couple of massive trees that pop up here and there awe her. They recently were able to buy their own small freighter and now get to pick their jobs. Maybe soon, they can afford a small house carved into the hills of the world too.

But Finn is a little nervous about the idea. He’s told her about Starkiller Base but hasn’t told her that once, the First Order had looked into making this world their superweapon. He is afraid that the world is still under their radar.

They piece together what happened to the Resistance after they left Takodana from rumors and news they have picked up on the job. The Resistance was based on D’Qar, but evacuated before the Starkiller weapon fired on them. But the First Order caught up with them on their evacuation route and nearly destroyed the entire fleet. Now, just a small group of survivors remain, keeping the Resistance and all they stood for alive.

No word of Han Solo or Leia Organa or Luke Skywalker though.

They sleep on their freighter that night and Finn tries to distract Rey from her thoughts. He also hopes that even for a short moment, he can forget about the state of things too.

In the afterglow of lovemaking, Rey asks Finn if he would be willing to help her find the Resistance and deliver them supplies. She understands that he does not want to get involved with their fighting and respects that. Honestly, she wants to stay out of the war as well.

“If we can find them,” she tells him while her head rests against his bare chest and she drapes an arm lovingly over his torso, “and the First Order isn’t around to threaten us, maybe we can drop supplies off for them. It could be by proxy. We’ve gotten things to people like that before.” Smuggling is a rare job for them and most of their jobs are legal, but sometimes for the right price and the right job, they’ve hidden illegal food and drink in their cargo bay. With their clean track record, so far no one has investigated them and then they drop their delivery off to someone else that will take the items the rest of the way.

Finn does not like this idea, but he of all people agrees that someone has to stand up to the First Order. Starkiller Base has been quiet; the First Order will only use it under specific conditions since they would likely destroy the entire galaxy if they got too carried away. Finn knows that Hux is meticulous and leaves no detail overlooked. If a world is rich in resources, he’d rather leave them intact than risk wasting an opportunity.

But Finn also knows Rey’s heart and knows that her wondering what might have happened if she stayed to help is eating away at her. Some nights, the same thing happens to him.

“Okay,” he relents.

She lifts her head up and stares at him wide-eyed and open-mouthed, obviously she had not been expecting him to agree. “Really?”

* * *

It’s another month before they have any real leads, but eventually they take a supply of medical equipment to a moon called Lenico IV. The setup is perfect because they can mask their delivery as a job tasked to them by the nearest medical facility that orbits the world. The moon was thought to be dead for years, but life was rediscovered and spacers are giving it time to grow while scientists are taking the opportunity to observe and learn.

The Resistance is hidden under the moon’s surface.

They land on a plain of grass as far as the eye can see. Rey thinks it might end up looking like Dantooine one day with trees growing here and there and a settlement trying to recolonize the moon. There was mining here once, she read when she looked the world up to find out what she and Finn were getting into.

A transport with the emblem of the New Republic approaches their freighter. The man that gets out of it and approaches them wears the gray uniform of a surveyor. He stops in his tracks and looks at Finn like he has seen a ghost, eyes wide with dark circles forming under them. The man looks exhausted.

Finn laughs, earnestly and heartily. “Poe Dameron, you’re alive!”

The two men embrace and Finn tries to give the pilot back the jacket he had held on to for months as a memento of the first person that saw him as an individual and not a number. But Poe refuses to take the jacket back and tells Finn to keep it.

Then, and whirl of orange and white rolls to Rey at full speed.

“Beebee-ate!” She drops to her knees to greet the droid who looks her up and down and chirps with glee.

She catches up with her friend while Poe watches her with curiosity. “Wait,” he realizes, _“you’re_ Rey.” 

Standing up, she holds out her hand for him to shake. “I am,” she affirms.

And maybe if they didn’t start out intending to join the fight, this meeting cements their involvement and their determination to continue to help. It's almost as if their life rotated in a full circle, bringing them back to the path that maybe they were always supposed to travel on in a strange and almost poetic twist of fate.


End file.
